What is SEO

SEO or search engine optimisation is the manipulation *on page and *off page that will affect the *serp of the website in question for a given key phrase (a key phrase is the combination of words you type into search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing). A single word typed into a search engine is a keyword.

Let’s look at keywords and phrases as they form the basis of search engine use a potential client for a plumber writes in the search engine “plumber in Brigadoon” and the search engine will provide a page of results. It will of course produce hundreds of pages of results but frankly if you are not on the front page the potential client will not find you.
So how does the search engine decide which websites will have which serp. Well the exact *algorithms are closely guarded secrets but we can take good educated guesses by studying other websites just what the algorithms are programmed to do.

Search engines basically look at a web page and index the text upon it; they pay  little attention to images and even less to flash, they like text. They will then go around the internet and find out how many other websites think that your website is worth mentioning i.e. have placed a link from their website to your website. They also look at what the link says this is called anchor text, so for our fictitious plumber in Brigadoon website we would prefer some other websites to place a link that says “plumber in Brigadoon”. If your website has the most weight of links with the other websites that share the same topic, your website will be number one.

I have made that sound simple and while achieving the goals are far from simple the end result is as I have written. You will notice that I say weight of links because all links are not created equal, the first thing to look for is relevancy the more related the topic on the senders page to the recipients page the better. Also if the sender’s page also receives more links then it will be seen as more important and a little of that importance will be carried along with the link.
When we have determined what key phrases will be beneficial for you and make no mistake keyword research is very important, we can optimise your page and begin a backlink campaign.

The speed of any SEO campaign is often determined by factors beyond our control such as domain age but all things being equal we can radically improve the serp for any site on the internet.

Footnote and glossary of terms.

On page optimisation:

means on the website itself including text images and Meta tags

Off page optimisation:

which means the external work that is done to improve serp, usually means link building.

Serp:

search engine ranking position

Key phrase:

a key phrase is the combination of words typed into a search engine.

Algorithms:

Are used by search engines to mathematically solve problems, or if you prefer answer questions, usual which page is most important and most relevant for a particular key phrase.

Meta tags:

Are invisible to the web site vistor but help search engines to categorise your page and also to determine how to index your site.